Well, who’s going to monitor the monitors of the monitors?

Enemy of the State
is something of an anomaly; a quality conspiracy thriller borne not from any distinct
political sensibility on the part of its makers but simple commercial instincts.
Of course, the genre has proved highly successful over the years so it's easy to see
why big name producers like Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson would have chased
that particular gravy boat. Yet they did so for some time without success; by
the time the movie was made, Simpson had passed away and Bruckheimer was flying
solo. It might be the only major film in the latter's career that, despite the prerequisite
gloss and stylish packaging, has something to say. More significant still, 15 years too late, the film's warnings are finally receiving recognition in the light of the Edward Snowden revelations.

In a piece for The Guardian earlier this year, John Patterson levelled the charge that Enemy was one of a number of Hollywood
movies that have “been
softening us up for this for years now, accustoming us to the notion
that our spending habits, our location, our every movement and
conversation, are visible to others whose motives we cannot know”. The implication that the ills of society are the fault of the movies
is as old as cinema itself and it’s frankly ridiculous to suggest that a
sprinkling of fictional narratives, be it on film or television, is responsible
for a purported sea change in views on personal privacy. It makes for a showy
headline on a comment piece, of course. But it would be more accurate to suggest
that movies are simply feeding off the ideas that are in the public arena
anyway, more than likely the reason Bruckheimer made the project. The surveillance
society has been in nascent form since the ‘70s (at least) and has thus been part
and parcel of any conversation concerning the capabilities of spycraft. Patterson
also fails to consider the likely presiding factor; a world where social media
has inured a whole generation to the idea of the value of privacy (in this
respect, Enemyis dated). Even
if Patterson’s presupposition was conceded, is it better or worse that
Hollywood (in his view) has had a grip on a topic decades ahead of the uninquisitive
Press?

And even if a film like Enemy is presumed guilty of helping to send the public to sleep
while their liberties are quietly removed, it seems that former NSA
Director General Michael Hayden’s reaction was quite the opposite. He was appalled by
the movie. So much so, he feared the NSA “couldn’t survive with the popular impression
of this agency being formed by the last Will Smith movie”.

That’s coming in a slightly different direction from the view
that Hollywood’s every move is complicit with the powers-that-be. That
everything dumped on the impressionable general public is designed to
indoctrinate or brainwash them into accepting the decrees of the state or
military-industrial complex. Undoubtedly, pressure is exerted and favours are bought; this is a fairly standard part of the parcel of military assistance in movie
productions (but it’s also a reason why certain films go their own way;
they don’t want toned down or tampered scripts). To suggest that everything will follow course presumes a
level of control that ignores the ingrained foibles and incompetences of
Hollywood (if the suits were so meticulous in steering product, they would
surely never get the whiff a flop).

Every new conspiracy theory now breeds counter
conspiracy theories within hours. It’s the nature of the Internet age, and
something Oliver Stone’s JFK (which laid the groundwork for the current
conspiracy era) couldn’t have imagined.There’s
a line of argument out there that the Snowden release of information is a
controlled event by the very forces so up-in-arms that it has occurred, that
whatever arcane codes the guys at the top operate by require public acceptance
or rejection; the point is that we have to know. Compared to this extreme (the occult,
Illuminati-ordained mode of reasoning) other theories look much less extraordinary. For example; the CIA is pissed at the rise in influence of
the NSA and was looking to sabotage it. There are any number of variations and
sub-theories along the way. In broader terms, this reflects a mindset that
assumes any significant crisis, disaster, or tragedy reported by the mainstream
media (MSM) has been micromanaged by those with apparently superhuman control
over everything. To a degree, there’s an entirely understandable cynicism
towards the lies of the establishment and the sheep-like reportage of the (mostly
corporate-controlled) MSM at the root of this. But it goes further, actively
presupposing there is an opposite truth behind any given event; it could just be that Snowden affair is
exactly what it appears to be.

And it could
be that Enemy of the State was
state-fostered to plant the seeds of acceptance of control in our minds (which
ignores that the paranoid will be concerned about such matters anyway, while
the “innocent” people won’t be worrying anyway William Hague-style);
Bruckheimer is no stranger to military endorsement. Top Gun was a virtual Navy recruitment campaign (and served to
function as exactly that). There’s an argument that evidence of such conspiring
intent is found in the (oft-seen) reassertion of the status quo at the conclusion of
Hollywood movies; the terror inflicted by the authorities on the innocent and
good individual comes at the behest of just one rogue element. When he’s dealt
with, order is restored. This is (only partially, as we shall see) the case
with Enemy of the State. It’s also a
common feature of the standard Aaron Sorkin script (more of that in a bit).

But there’s also a fairly mundane reason for such an
approach. Sometimes it's about Hollywood worrying who they’re going to
offend most so they attempt to fictionalise the offensive element (Patriot Games
and its rogue IRA faction, numerous pre-9/11 films with specifically named –
invented – Middle Eastern extremists). On other occasions it is simply down to
storytelling and box office logic. A story has to be contained. Good has to
triumph. If it doesn’t, you can still
have a hit movie, but you’re more likely to end up with The Parallax View. And if you’re making a big, big, movie with big,
big, stars, that simply isn’t an option.

Further to this, there’s the question of what the return
of the status quo achieves. In Enemy’s
case it certainly didn’t mean people dismissed the idea that they were being,
or could be, monitored (although the ways and means were oft-cited as
far-fetched or exaggerated). One might argue it took the weight off because, if
you’re a really good person like Will Smith, you will ultimately persevere rather
than get crushed like a bug. But that clearly didn’t comfort Hayden. So, if
the movie is guilty of brainwashing, you have to ask what kind of brainwashing; more
than any of the ‘70s conspiracy thrillers, where the protagonist was part of
the machine (Three Days of the Condor)
or intentionally getting involved (The Parallax
View, All the President’s Men), here there pronouncement is “It could happen to you!”

In his book Reel
Power, Matthew Alford attests to the CIA’s advisory role in Hollywood,
having set up a liaison office in 1995. Two Bruckheimer
productions, Bad Company and Enemy of the State, are among those cited to have been in consultation. There is no
indication of what was said, or whether the advice was taken. Perhaps the CIA
didn’t care if Enemy pissed all over
the NSA; it wouldn’t do them any harm (or perhaps there was a beef between the
two; either way, if that was the case, it’s difficult to believe that they
would ignore how the public tend to conflate such acronym-ious government organisations). Alford
is good at dissecting the cons of specific pictures (Bruckheimer’s Blackhawk Down for example), but less
persuasive in his attempts to fit any given movie into his unified theory (and
the NSA doesn’t even get a mention in his treatise). Tony Scott noted that, in
preparation for Enemy, he was given
tours of the CIA and NSA. What struck him most was the youth of the staff (“Eighty percent of the guys were in
their 20s”), which no doubt informed the badinage
between the “nerds” and “jocks”. It seems curious the agencies
didn’t offer notes, or request changes. Perhaps they were happy with it at the
time (whatever Hayden later says to the contrary); they do come across as rather effective, so maybe it stroked their egos. Perhaps they just assumed no
one would believe it…

It should probably come as no surprise that a producer
of pro-military movies, however superficial in content (no one is going to
accuse him of being a deep movie maker, least of all Bruckheimer himself),
should be a donating Republican. It’s probably safe to say that Bruckheimer’s
political affiliations are chiefly motivated by fiscal concerns rather than
idealism or staunch beliefs. He makes violent movies because audiences like
violent movies (although, notably in the last decade, he has veered towards
fantasy and adventure fare). He may well feel that American might is right, but
most of his movies aren’t militaristic (if Top
Gun 2 gets produced soon, it will be his first in the genre for more than a
decade). And he’s not so entrenched that card-carrying Hollywood liberals
refuse to work with him (even if he were, he pays well). None of which should
be interpreted as a defence of the guy (but you can mark me as something of an
apologist in so far as I’m presenting a case for a movie I like, no matter who
may be behind it). Rather it’s to suggest that his pictures aren’t necessarily limited
to being just one thing. Indeed, a few of them are actually pretty good!

As noted, Enemy
was first mooted in 1991 and it took Bruckheimer most of the next seven years
to bring it to the screen. The credited
writer is David Marconi, which belies a much more involved scripting process.
Whatever the ins and outs of arbitration, Marconi’s script (his only other
significant claim is a story credit on Die
Hard 4.0/Live Free and Die Hard) also received contributions/doctoring from
Aaron Sorkin, Henry Bean and Tony Gilroy, to the extent that all were credited
on early promotional material. That’s an interesting collection of writer
talents right there. Bean’s past work included “dark side” cop movies-with-a-conscience
Internal Affairs and Deep Cover. He would later co-write and
direct one of Ryan Gosling’s break out roles in The Believer, concerning a Jewish man whose self-loathing leads to
him join the KKK. Unfortunately for Bean, he’s also credited on Basic Instinct 2. Tony Gilroy has made his
name with spy and surveillance fare; he’s credited on all the Bourne movies (including the post-Damon
and Greengrass The Bourne Legacy,
which may indicate a certain level of fractiousness between them), and wrote
and directed the excellent corporate intrigue thriller Michael Clayton.

Then there’s Sorkin, whose TV series The West Wing revealed that the White
House is populated by only the most well-meaning so-and-sos; all of them brimming with
extraordinary moral fibre. Reel Power
gives the original screenplay of Sorkin’s Charlie
Wilson’s War credit for touching on certain unvarnished truths that ended
up on the cutting room floor, but criticises its failure to call out the US for
provoking the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the first place. Sorkin was
uncredited for his work on another political movie released in 1998, Warren
Beatty’s scathing and frequently very funny Bulworth.
According to credited co-writer Jeremy Pikser (in Peter Biskind’s biography of
Beatty, Star) 90% of Sorkin’s script
(itself a rewrite) was thrown out. As Biskind puts it, Sorkin had a “sunny, wish-fulfillment take on American
politics that was almost comically at odds with the reality”. Which sounds
a little bit like the coming-up-roses conclusion to Enemy. While Wikipedia has it that Sorkin rewrote some of Smith’s
scenes, it appears that he actually did a full two-week polish on Marconi’s script
which then went to Gilroy and Bean as script doctors. Director Scott was on the
quest for improved characterisation, which had served him well after being
bitten by the Tarantino bug (Enemy’s
shoot-out finale is a near restaging of the one in True Romance, complete with bystander hero and Tom Sizemore).

Marconi, recently interviewed regarding the movie,
said he was inspired by James Bamber’s book on the NSA, The Puzzle Palace (“It was a massive eye opener.
Anyone who was in any way paying attention to this stuff knew that the NSA was
a big vacuum cleaner and that they were storing everything. This has been going
on since World War II”) Marconi notes that Oliver
Stone was interested in directing, and opines that Scott made it “much more entertainment fare”. It’s
surely a valid criticism, but the corollary to that is Stone might just have
ended up bludgeoning the audience, certainly given the U-Turn mode he was in at the time. Marconi also addresses the question
of the acceptance of surveillance state (“Something
that Orwell never figured out in 1984
is that people would embrace the idea of Big Brother if there’s a game attached
to it, or if it’s convenient”).

Despite their successful history together (four movies, the
most recent of which was Crimson Tide),
Bruckheimer had his work cut out getting Scott to sign on. Once he finally secured
the director, there were further difficulties persuading Hackman to take the
supporting role of Brill (the ex-NSA operative loosely based on
Hackman’s character in The Candidate).
It didn’t end there. Disney Chairman Joe Roth also didn’t want to know at
first. But Smith, still mainly known as a comedy star at that point, agreed because it gave
him the chance to work with Hackman. It was a part earmarked for Tom Cruise
(the delays with Eyes Wide Shut nixed
that but who knows if Cruise would have definitely gone for it, what with his
plates-in-the-air approach).

Congressman
Hammersley: Did you read the Post? This
bill is not the first step to the surveillance society. It is the surveillance
society.

Marconi and Scott set out their stall from the first scene
(one suspects name checking The Washington Post was an intentional nod to the
paper that exposed Watergate; it can’t be a coincidence that Jason Robards won
an Oscar for playing the paper’s editor Ben Bradlee). Robards’ Congressman
refuses to support Jon Voight’s NSA Deputy Director Thomas Reynolds and his
Telecommunications and Privacy Act (“Invasion
of Privacy is more like it”) and receives a lethal injection for his
troubles. Unbeknownst to Reynolds and his team, their actions have been
recorded by a wildlife researcher’s video camera (to catch “the migratory patterns of Canadian geese. Or
lack thereof”; oh, the irony!) The movie establishes that the bill is not
granting the NSA new powers. It has these powers already; all the bill is doing
is legitimising them (and the net they are able to/already cover). The current
conversation post-Snowden is partly about whether the surveillance undertaken
is legal under The Patriot Act (or does it violate the
Constitution; does The Patriot Act violate the Constitution?) Many people
expressed understandable concerns over the scope of The Patriot Act, but it
bulldozered it’s way through Congress on the back of post-9/11 hysteria.

Some conspiracists (or, alternatively,
synchronicity-spotters) have noted the Reynolds’ birthdate is 9/11/40; it
appears this was a conscious reference by the filmmakers to the first remote
operation of a computer (over a phone line). In synchronicitous terms, the date
does serve to underline that the
rhetoric used by Reynolds to justify his actions is exactly the same as is currently
being used by defenders of mass-spying. Reynolds informs us that the US is the
richest, most powerful, most hated nation on Earth. It is at war 24 hours a
day.

Reynolds: Do I have to itemise the number of American lives we’ve saved in the last 12 months alone with the judicious use of intelligence surveillance?

The movie was conceived in a North by Northwest fashion, such that lawyer Robert Clayton Dean
(Smith) is completely out of his depth at the time he comes under suspicion (he
bumps into the Jason Lee’s fleeing wildlife researcher, who conceals his device
in Dean’s bag). As such, Marconi might be accused of laying it on a bit thick by
having Dean’s wife Carla (Regina King) ranting at the television about the end
of personal privacy when we first see her (what are the chances, eh?)
Congressman Sam Albert (Stuart Wilson) is on TV speaking in favour of the bill.
Very presciently, he argues, “When
buildings start blowing up, people’s priorities begin to change”.

It’s left to Brill, the man who was once on the inside (a
communications analyst; if The
Conversation is anything to go by, a much more sober version of the
consequence-free geeks who see their job as little more than a game), to spell
it all out. He tells Dean that “The
government’s been in bed with the entire telecommunications industry since the
‘40s”. They have infected everything; our bank statements, computer files,
email, they listen to our phone calls. Brill provides a potted summary of the
then state of affairs; there are 18 acres of mainframe computers underground at
Fort Mead; key words in conversation set off red flags for analysis “and that was 20 years ago”; there are
over 100 spy satellites looking down, ready to snap information out of the air
(without the need for a wire tap). Brill also sells the lie that he was
involved in a nostalgic past where motives were truer (“We never had to deal with domestic. For us it was always war”) but
there is an essential truth to his assessment the creature’s tentacles have turned
inwards, ensnaring those it once purported to protect.

The idea that the movie concludes on a point of safety for
all is an interesting one, as it only really
does so for Dean and his family. This is a status quo that enables the
pre-existing surveillance cited by Brill to continue. And realistically, it can
be the only conclusion to the current conversation; laws may be changed and
avowals made, but does anyone truly believe that the genie can be put back in
the bottle? Particularly when institutions with command over the genie are, as a
matter of course, consummately impenetrable.

Enemy interrogates
the oft-used argument that you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to
hide. In Dean’s case, everything is fair game (past transgressions are top of
the list) and, where there is no evidence of wrongdoing, slurs are more than
enough to presume guilt (the “no smoke without fire” assumption). The ease with
which his life is unspooled over the course of a day, based on the reasoning
that he may have be connected to the
missing assassination footage, is masterfully played out.

It’s not just the
script beats (NSA techies deducing Dean’s relationship with Lisa Bonet’s Rachel
Banks from account payments, the cancellation of his credit cards, his wife’s
assumption that he’s still having an affair with his Rachel – to be fair,
that’s an entirely reasonable assumption as ‘er indoors can’t compete with
Bonet – and his law firm’s hasty conclusion that his affairs are dirty) but the
technical virtuosity with which Scott renders them. This might be the ultimate Tony Scott picture, the perfect marriage of his hyperactive editing style with
material (I’m not saying its his best, although it’s certainly Top Three). He
uses every element at his disposal to oil the wheels of pursuit, from the
satellites zooming above the Earth (a marvellous visual, punctuated by the almost
musical sound of Morse Code), to the overhead shots suggesting satellite
footage. In addition, there’s a continuous cutting between different mediums,
be they close circuit cameras or monitor screens. The picture is a visual feast.

Reynolds: Privacy’s been dead for 30 years because we
can’t risk it.

If Dean’s life doesn’t begin to fall apart until about 40
minutes in, the picture doesn’t suffer from a slow build up. Marconi puts all
the necessary pieces in place in order to pay them off later. Some of these
work well, some less so. There’s no getting around the fact that it makes no
sense for Paulie Pintero (Sizemore) to give Dean a week to reveal who made the incriminating
tape that could send him back to jail; why doesn’t Pintero just torture the
name out of Dean there and then (one refreshing thing about this movie is that,
even though he waves a gun about, Smith’s character isn’t at all macho; there’s
no way he’s going to stand up to being brutalised)? If that’s expedient, the device
of the conflicting agendas of the different agencies is rather neat. It’s
established that Pintero is under surveillance by the FBI, something that Dean
is able to use his advantage come the climax (with a strong pinch of movie
luck).

Scott delivers a number of gripping chase sequences,
beginning with the pursuit of Jason Lee (“Target
is… down. Target is down, permanently”), but he takes the time to show us
Dean’s environment. First, the house call by Krug (Jake Busey) and Jones (Scott
Caan) where we see Dean does have a basic level of savvy in how to deal with
officialdom; it’s part and parcel of his legal background. When they ask if
they can search the house, he replies “I
don’t think so, not without a warrant”. Scott maintains a constant
back-and-forth between the watched and the watchers. To reference True Romance again, it surely can’t be a
coincidence that (frequently very funny) surveillance patter can be found in
both movies. Here. Seth Green’s Selby (one of a number of uncredited performances)
gives Dean the accolade “Oh, this guy’s
good”.

But, when the escalation comes, there is a swift transition
from being tracked to being pursued. The subsequent break-in (“Jones… painted… the dog!”), in which a
stolen blender becomes a recurring gag (“You
want a blend?”) finds the NSA team using their technology for all its worth
(the 3D imaging of Dean’s shopping bag) but unable to think laterally (Dean
doesn’t have the recording because his son has swiped it). It’s another clever
device, misdirection for Dean if not the audience, that he thinks Pintero is
behind the newspaper headlines (“Blake
attorney said to be under FBI investigation”) and it leads to a second
meeting with the lovely Rachel.

This is Scott’s first clear homage to The Conversation, although his flashy adrenalised surveillance in
the park (“If we don’t have line of sight
we cant hear what they say”) bears as much real resemblance to that movie as Brian De Palma’s station shootout in The Untouchables does to its
inspiration, the Odessa steps sequence in Battleship
Potemkin. It’s representative of Enemy
of the State that a scene central to The
Conversation (as with De Palma’s Blow
Up, it will be played and replayed later to attempt to divine greater
meaning) becomes just one of many moments. Scott is always racing ahead.

Brill: It means the NSA can read the time off your
fucking wristwatch.

Which is why, say, Gabriel Byrne can show up for just a couple of
scenes as the fake Brill met by Dean. Perhaps Robards’ one scene deal should
have forewarned us of the movie’s surfeit of name actors appearing in little
more than a series of extended cameos, but it still makes the viewing
experience something of a treasure trove. Nevertheless, the picture needs
someone of Hackman’s stature to glue it all together. This was Smith in pre-Ali mode and, fine as he is in a
dramatic role, he said he found it difficult to supress his comedic instincts.
That doesn’t stop him from completely rising to the challenge, holding his
own opposite Hackman. There’s nothing the latter does here that he couldn’t do
in his sleep, but he does it to perfection. Their first encounter, as
they proceed from lift to rooftop while Brill disposes of a number of tracers planted
on Dean, is a rousing sequence; the guy in the know who can outsmart the
smartest (“He’s getting help, boys. He’s
getting help”) and is fully conversant with their ways (“He never looks up”).

Jamie: Either he just committed suicide…

Selby: Or learned to fly.

Perhaps one of the reasons Enemy of the State doesn’t invite respect in the manner of its ‘70s
antecedents is that it is such a buoyant, upbeat affair. Sure, it touches on
marital infidelity and Rachel meets an unpleasant end (but that’s okay, she
poisoned their marriage!), but there’s an emphatic swing towards the victims’
retaliation. In The Parallax View,
Beatty was the permanent dupe. In Three
Days of the Condor, Redford was more fortunate than clever. Smith’s Dean
has the benefit of an ex-inside man. Brill leaves their first meeting with the
gesture “You live another day, I’ll be
very impressed” but Dean displays, in less debonair fashion to Cary Grant
in North By Northwest perhaps, the familiar mettle of the little man who emerges triumphant. He eludes his pursuers (“You’re transmitting. Get rid of your clothes”)
by starting a fire, escapes an ambulance and runs headlong into a
traffic-filled tunnel (one of Scott’s less likely choices is asking the guy Dean
steals clothes from to sit patiently in a bathrobe waiting for the NSA guys to discover
him).

Brill: I blew up the building.

Dean: Why?

Brill: Because you made a phone call.

When Brill and Dean reencounter each other, the script
occasionally falls into unnecessary hyperbole as Smith rails against his bad
luck (“This is my life I worked hard for
it I want it back!”; spoken like a true, prioritised Republican), but
mostly this is held in check by Scott’s flair for facilitating a heady pace
without sacrificing copious exposition (we’ve seen something of this approach
before in Stone’s JFK, but here
there’s an added urgency here). Brill’s chicken coop home (“Copper mesh keeps radio signals out”)
meets with an untimely end because Dean doesn’t follow his instructions to the
letter; he foolishly uses a payphone and the NSA is listening in. Scott even
throws in a pet to give the escape an added frisson (will Will save the cat and get out in time?) Smith’s character
doesn’t seem entirely keen on either of the pets in the movie (his wife’s dog
being the other), but I’m not sure I’d go as far as attributing any subtext to
this.

Brill: I loved the agency I lived the work.

Brill’s backstory is that he vanished from the Agency in
1980, having last been active in Iran in ’78. After the fall of the Shah, the NSA
conveniently forgot he existed. His partner didn’t make it out, so Brill took
care of his daughter (Rachel). Brill explains that the treatment Dean has
received is just the way it is (“If
you’re a murder suspect you’re easier to find”); additionally, it makes it
easier to discredit him if he ever goes public. The turnaround in their
fortunes might legitimately be viewed as unlikely wish fulfillment, but I don’t
think that makes the picture any less effective in presenting its ideas. On the
contrary, one might argue that by being accessible it gets them out to a wider
audience than it otherwise would.

The flipside of this is that the movie implies "bad" technology is great if you're a good guy and use if to just ends. Brill summons
the spirit of the Vietcong when he explains how they will overcome their
adversaries (“Well, if they’re big and
you’re small, then you’re mobile and they’re slow. You’re hidden and they’re
exposed”) and puts this into effect by using the NSA’s own tracers to bug
Congressman Albert’s hotel room (he’s having an affair). The “How do you like
it?” turning of the tables may be a little on-the-nose, as an example of
convenient Hollywood plotting, but it’s consistent with the key position of the
script – that scrutiny of every action can be good for no one. Come the climax,
Albert is on TV having reappraised his position, asking where do you “draw the line between the protection of
national security and the protection of civil liberties, particularly the
sanctity of my home. You’ve got no right to come into my home”.

The triumph of the good guys is a qualified victory at best.
The only one who comes out thoroughly condemned is Reynolds. The deniability of
the operatives is all too believable; we note from the beginning that their
actions are authorised as a“training op” and they hold this line
into the later interrogations (“I thought
it was a STO… Standard Training Op”) We are told that the privacy bill is
only dead in its current form but is still very much alive (indeed… ) Meanwhile,
it appears that Dean (and family) have gone along with a cover-up (“Mob boss implicated in Rachel Banks killing”).
Beatty or Redford never would have countenanced such a thing. Dean has got the
all-important life he worked so hard for back, and it appears that his scruples
only extend so far. This is a nice touch, one that doesn’t entirely register on
first viewing and gives the sweetened pill a slightly bitter aftertaste.

Credit is due also for the consistency of having a
physically (if not mentally) passive hero involved in the climactic shoot-out.
Particularly for a Bruckheimer film, hiding the hero under a table just isn’t
the usual approach. If some of the details of this set up are lumpy, ultimately
the dovetailing of agendas and misunderstandings is very satisfying. Reynolds
and Pintero are at complete cross-purposes regarding the tape (it’s also a nice
touch that the tape is destroyed earlier in the movie; even if Dean wished to
change the status quo he has no evidence to do so, another indication that the
movie isn’t really offering such a clean cut victory as first appears). Then
FBI surveillance thread kicks in, urgently so when a bloodied Brill steps out
to take some fresh air and the Feds see his policeman’s uniform.

Smith has been disappointingly circumspect with his
roles since. It’s ironic that one of the few movies he has done with any substance should have been predicated on working
with an actor rather than the material. It’s not as if he’s alone in his status
as a big star who thinks primarily in terms of box office receipts. Probably as
early as the choice to make Men in Black
II something had gone awry. It’s a shame, as he has enormous natural
charisma on his side to support flirtations with challenging subject matter. On
the occasions he has attempted something different (Seven Pounds) the result has been unmitigated twaddle. Hence, Men in Black 3. In Enemy, he steers the turns between humour and drama effortlessly.
I’m not sure he fully sells Dean as a hotshot lawyer, but in every other respect
he’s sure of himself. There’s his good-natured embarrassment buying lingerie
for his wife, his easy-going dismissal of her concerns over who decides who
eavesdrops on whom (“I think you should”),
and his affection for her relatives (“And
I love your family… except for your dad”) As noted, he holds his own in his
shared scenes, and he’s with sparring with some of the greats.

Hackman had only five or six years of roles left until his
retirement, many of which were forgettable (he’s great in both Heist and The Royal Tennenbaums, however). This feels, rightly, like classic
Hackman. As for the rest of the cast, Voight had been capitalising on a
regalvanised return to the big screen since Heat
three years before. Bonet had been away concentrating on
her family, and would disappear again soon after, but it’s good to see her
however briefly.

The NSA guys were all played by up and coming actors on the verge of going
on to bigger things; Barry Pepper, Scott Caan, Jake Busey, Jamie Kennedy, Jack
Black (typically uncouth, and expressing an obsession with the Deans’ nanny). The back and forth between ”Technical Support” (the IT
geeks) and the Ops guys (“You can tell by their haircuts”) is very funny, but doesn’t
undercut the tension; as noted it’s an effective tool for showing none of this
is real to them, and that they have no interest in thinking through the consequences
of what they do for a living.

Then there’s Byrne. And Ian Hart (bills to pay, I’m guessing).
Anna Gunn (later of Breaking Bad),
Grant Heslov (later of George Clooney pal; I wonder if his character’s
alternative newspaper The Awful Truth
is inspired by the Terry-Thomas film?) and Ivana Milicevic (currently making a
splash in Banshee). Jason Lee got a role based on Bruckheimer being a fan of Chasing Amy, James Le Gros plays Smith’s
lawyer buddy and Philip Baker Hall (uncredited) is one of the law firm’s
partners. Then there’s Robards (uncredited) and a suitably threatening Sizemore
(also uncredited).

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Enemy is super stylish and super glossy; that’s Tony Scott all over.
But his work in the subsequent decade would see him increasingly opt for a
dirtied up, hyperreal approach. This was his first time working with
cinematographer Daniel Mindel, who has since become J J Abrams DP of choice
(the poor chap, accommodating all those lens flares). Editor Chris
Lebenzon’s relationship with Scott dated back to Top Gun and concluded with the director’s final film Unstoppable. I think this might be their
best collaboration. There can be a sense with Scott movies, and with those
influenced by him, of a “The more cuts the better” ethic, but in a
picture all about multiple perspectives this seems entirely appropriate.

The arresting main titles come from Garson Yu (recent
memorable work includes Life of Pi)
while the music is a combined effort from Harry Gregson-Williams and Trevor
Rabin; it’s as alternately as gripping and overblown as you’d expect from a Bruckheimer
score (Rabin previously contributed to the ridiculous Con Air soundtrack, if that’s any indication). Benjamin Fernandez
predictably designs the NSA interiors with huge walls of TV monitors, but it
has to be said it does the trick visually. There’s a Director’s Cut of the
movie, but it’s one that’s fairly inessential; I did watch it a few years back
but it left little impression (the current Blu-ray release reverts to including
this material as deleted scenes).

Reynolds: I hate doing this at Christmas.

Did I mention Enemy of
the State is set at Christmas? It’s hardly integral to the plot (except
that it gives Dean’s son added impetus for laying his hands on the recording,
snooping for presents), but it does find Bruckheimer entering the
territory of competing action movie producer Joel Silver. Silver’s Lethal Weapon and Die Hard were both set at yuletide, although it is arguably only a
memorable plot feature of the latter (“Now
I have a machine gun. Ho-ho-ho”).

It’s not paranoia if
they’re really after you.

It might be argued that Enemy
of the State loses points for being a slam-bang action take on the
conspiracy movie. If it left its brain at the door as a consequence of adopting
that approach, I might agree. It may not exude the nihilistic despair of The Parallax View, or draw breath long
enough to create the sense of isolation seen in Three Days of the Condor, but its pace feels perfectly in tune with
the hi-tech world 20 years hence from those pictures (I very much doubt the
current wave of validation Enemy is
receiving will be repeated by Eagle Eye
in another 10 years). Just because Enemy of
the State is great fun to watch doesn’t make it any less insightful than
its forbears.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vampire Academy (2014) My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on
the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct
Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire
Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if
you added vampires to Heathers, you
would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately
inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from
Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish
leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to
surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young
Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel
storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation
crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like,
hoping…

Russian Doll Season One (SPOILERS) It feels like loading the dice to proclaim something necessarily better because it’s female-driven, but that’s the tack The Hollywood Reporter took with its effusive review of Russian Doll, suggesting “although Nadia goes on a similar journey of self-discovery to Bill Murray’s hackneyed reporter in Groundhog Day, the fact that the show was created, written by and stars women means that it offers up a different, less exploitative and far more thoughtful angle” (than the predominately male-centric entries in the sub-genre). Which rather sounds like Rosie Knight changing the facts to fit her argument. And ironic, given star Natasha Lyonne has gone out of her way to stress the show’s inclusive message. Russian Dollis good, but the suggestion that “unlike its predecessors (it) provides a thoughtfulness, authenticity and honesty which makes it inevitable end (sic) all the more powerful” is cobblers.

Out of Africa (1985) I did not warm to Out of Africa on my initial viewing, which would probably have been
a few years after its theatrical release. It was exactly as the publicity
warned, said my cynical side; a shallow-yet-bloated, awards-baiting epic
romance. This was little more than a well-dressed period chick flick, the
allure of which was easily explained by its lovingly photographed exotic vistas
and Robert Redford rehearsing a soothing Timotei advert on Meryl Streep’s distressed
locks. That it took Best Picture only seemed like confirmation of it as
all-surface and no substance. So, on revisiting the film, I was curious to see
if my tastes had “matured” or if it deserved that dismissal.

Roma (2018)
(SPOILERS) Roma is a critics' darling and a shoe-in for Best Foreign Film Oscar, with the potential to take the big prize to boot, but it left me profoundly indifferent, its elusive majesty remaining determinedly out of reach. Perhaps that's down to generally spurning autobiographical nostalgia fests – complete with 65mm widescreen black and white, so it's quite clear to viewers that the director’s childhood reverie equates to the classics of old – or maybe the elliptical characterisation just didn't grab me, but Alfonso Cuarón's latest amounts to little more than a sliver of substance beneath all that style.

Split (2016) (SPOILERS) M Night Shyamalan went from the toast of twist-based
filmmaking to a one-trick pony to the object of abject ridicule in the space of
only a couple of pictures: quite a feat. Along the way, I’ve managed to miss several
of his pictures, including his last, The
Visit, regarded as something of a re-locating of his footing in the low
budget horror arena. Split continues
that genre readjustment, another Blumhouse production, one that also manages to
bridge the gap with the fare that made him famous. But it’s a thematically
uneasy film, marrying shlock and serious subject matter in ways that don’t
always quite gel.

Shyamalan has seized on a horror staple – nubile teenage
girls in peril, prey to a psychotic antagonist – and, no doubt with the best
intentions, attempted to warp it. But, in so doing, he has dragged in themes
and threads from other, more meritable fare, with the consequence that, in the
end, the conflicting positions rather subvert his attempts at subversion…

Django Unchained (2012) (MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has
regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at
very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django
Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a
director in Kill Bill), I was
pleasantly surprised by Inglourious
Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in
its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular
protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic.
As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was
operating at his zenith. Django Unchained
is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his
all-important aesthetic pr…

Starship Troopers (1997) (SPOILERS) Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi trio of Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers are frequently claimed to be unrivalled in their genre, but it’s really only the first of them that entirely attains that rarefied level. Discussion and praise of Starship Troopers is generally prefaced by noting that great swathes of people – including critics and cast members – were too stupid to realise it was a satire. This is a bit of a Fight Club one, certainly for anyone from the UK (Verhoeven commented “The English got it though. I remember coming out of Heathrow and seeing the posters, which were great. They were just stupid lines about war from the movie. I thought, ‘Finally someone knows how to promote this.’”) who needed no kind of steer to recognise what the director was doing. And what he does, he does splendidly, even if, at times, I’m not sure he entirely sustains a 129-minute movie, since, while both camp and OTT, Starship Troopers is simultaneously required t…

Prediction 2019 Oscars Shockingly, as in I’m usually much further behind, I’ve missed out on only one of this year’s Best Picture nominees– Vice isn’t yet my vice, it seems – in what is being suggested, with some justification, as a difficult year to call. That might make for must-see appeal, if anyone actually cared about the movies jostling for pole position. If it were between Black Panther and Bohemian Rhapsody (if they were even sufficiently up to snuff to deserve a nod in the first place), there might be a strange fascination, but Joe Public don’t care about Roma, underlined by it being on Netflix and stillconspicuously avoided by subscribers (if it were otherwise, they’d be crowing about viewing figures; it’s no Bird Box, that’s for sure).

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) (SPOILERS) There’s a groundswell of opinion that Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation is the
best in near 20-year movie franchise. I’m not sure I’d go quite that far, but
only because this latest instalment and its two predecessors have maintained
such a consistently high standard it’s difficult to pick between them. III featured a superior villain and an
emotional through line with real stakes. Ghost
Protocol dazzled with its giddily constructed set pieces and pacing.
Christopher McQuarrie’s fifth entry has the virtue of a very solid script, one
that expertly navigates the kind of twists and intrigue one expects from a spy
franchise. It also shows off his talent as a director; McQuarrie’s not one for
stylistic flourish, but he makes up for this with diligence and precision. Best
of all, he may have delivered the series’ best character in Rebecca Ferguson’s
Ilsa Faust (admittedly, in a quintet that makes a virtue of pared down motivation
and absen…

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) (SPOILERS) The zeitgeist Best Picture Oscar winner is prone to falling from grace like no other. Often, they’re films with notable acting performances but themes that tend to appear antiquated or even slightly offensive in hindsight. Few extol the virtues of American Beauty the way they did twenty years ago, and Kramer vs. Kramer isn’t quite seen as exemplifying a sensitive and balanced examination of the fallout of divorce on children and their parents the way it was forty years previously. It remains a compelling film for the performances, but it’s difficult not to view it, despite the ameliorating effect of Meryl Streep (an effect she had to struggle to exert), as a vanity project of its star, and one that doesn’t do him any favours with hindsight and behind-the-scenes knowledge.